Adweek: Big Brands Are Enlisting Employees to Create an Army of Social Media Mavens

Looking internally to employees can be one of the best and most efficient ways to promote your business. According to a recent Adweek article, more employers are turning to their own employees to promote the brand via social media with advocacy programs in place.

Mastercard launched an ambassador program last summer to have employees share brand-related content across their own networks, which already has 400 employees involved. By using intranet to collect videos, photos and text, employees can easily push out content to their own Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles.

Altimeter Group found that 90 percent of brands already used or planned to pursue an employee advocacy program in a study released in March. When measuring the effectiveness of these programs, the study also found that 21 percent of consumers said they “liked” employee posts about companies, providing engagement at a much lower cost than social advertising.

Humana’s employee advocacy program focus on providing content to employee that will give them an expert voice on their own channels.

"Forty percent of our content is Humana branded," said Jason Spencer, the healthcare company's social media community manager. "Sixty percent is health and well-being content, which allows [employees] to grow followers and become influencers in the space. So when they do share Humana content, they have a more qualified audience."